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Engineers develop smallest-ever FM transmitter.

Graphene is one of the crystalline forms of carbon and it’s also the material that Columbia University engineers have used to make the world’s smallest FM transmitter. They used graphene’s special properties — its mechanical strength and electrical conduction — and created what’s known as a “nano-mechanical” system that can create FM signals. In effect, it’s the world’s smallest FM radio transmitter.

How small? It’s invisible to the naked eye – although its signal was picked up by an ordinary FM receiver. “This device is by far the smallest system that can create such FM signals,” says mechanical engineering professor James Hone, who adds, “There is a long way to go toward actual applications in this area.” He suspects it’ll most likely be used in smartphones for some sort of wireless signal processing. It’s all a bit sci-fi worthy and what that means for FM stations, if anything, only time will tell. The study was published in the November 17 issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

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